Avelino brushes aside the haters in his punishing ‘FYO’ video

The rising Tottenham rapper and Stormzy collaborator drops a video for his bruising new EP title track.

Avelino doesn’t have much time for detractors, and makes that message brutally clear on ‘FYO’. The thundering centre piece of his latest EP, those initials stand for “fuck your opinion” – a phrase repeated throughout the track over ribcage-quakingly bassy Raf Riley production. Since his Stormzy-featuring 2014 mixtape Iconic Ambition, however, haters for him to rally against have actually been in short supply – between that tape and his Wretch 32 collab Young Fire, Old Flame last year, Avelino has been quietly building steam and amassing plaudits as one of the UK’s sharpest new rap talents.

His FYO EP landed earlier this month and is well worth your time if you haven’t checked it already. Download it now with two bonus tracks, and watch the release’s first video above. “The thing about the video… the kind of record that FYO is, it would have been easy to go all out and have a typical rap video,” he explains. “But we went the other way for a more impactful message. We went minimal, not with the ideas but more in a sense of one location, one setting, one room. It opens up the message to understand and focus on what I’m really saying on the record. It’s a compliment to the track.”